We often walk over to the South Bay Center to shop at various stores and look around. I particularly like it there because I get to talk to a lot of friendly people from Roxbury, South End, Dorchester and South Boston.

We would stop in at Home Depot, Target or for coffee in Panera. A lot of local businessmen, construction workers and retired people also like to stop for lunch and shop there.

But the area has been experiencing some rough times and something has to be done about it. Walking over the bridge from the Andrew Station T stop, people encounter drug addicts on their way to one of the many methadone clinics in the South End.

“The Methadone Mile,” which runs into the South End from South Boston, has become a dangerous place for both residents and businesses.

When we opened the Long Island Treatment Facility in the 1980s, we were able to provide a safe environment for both our homeless as well as men and women with mental illnesses.

The city provided transportation, medical care, a hot meal, a warm bed and counseling and the best staff you could find. But since the bridge closed in October of 2014, many of Boston’s homeless and mentally ill, have been forced to live on our cold and dangerous parks and streets.

This has created unsafe neighborhoods for families, children and our elderly. Walking around the Boston Medical Center area and the South End the other day with my grandson Braeden in his carriage, countless residents expressed their deepest concern over the safety and stability of their neighborhood.

I have told people in the Andrew Square neighborhood and the South End, that I know Mayor Walsh, our elected officials, community and business leaders, are committed in helping solve this serious homeless problem. This must be our highest priority in Boston.

The Long Island Bridge and the reopening of the homeless treatment facility is medically critical for our city’s needy as well as the stability of area residents.

Raymond L. Flynn is a former mayor of Boston and a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.